


The Death of Patroclus [Forever In You]

by APastandFutureNerd



Series: The Death of Achilles and Patroclus [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Bittersweet Ending, Cannibalism, Character Death, Corny, Don’t copy to another site, Early stage of Alzheimer’s disease, Established Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Euthanasia, Grief, Hannibal Eats Will, I sobbed so hard while writing this, M/M, Memory Loss, Murder Husbands, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, What Was I Thinking?, corny af, emotional af, very very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 16:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APastandFutureNerd/pseuds/APastandFutureNerd
Summary: "Goodbye my darling",Hannibal muttered into the ear of Will who was bedded  on fine white silken sheets and thick layers of the prettiest red petals of the most expensive red Naomi roses strewn underneath and beside him.A tear made its way down from Hannibal’s eyes but he allowed it to stain his cheek until one finger of Will wiped it away with a gentle movement."Will allows Hannibal to consume him and make himself a part of him  before the cruel illness of mind takes away the person Hannibal loves most and leaves an empty shell behind.





	The Death of Patroclus [Forever In You]

**Author's Note:**

> You may ask why I am doing this to the characters when they have already suffered so much in the show. Well, my muse is very strange and gives me the darkest ideas sometimes. I wrote this when I was very sad and having another depressed episode.
> 
> This story is about assisted suicide and the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease.  
> Please be careful. It is a lot to digest and may not be suitable to read for everyone! So if it triggers you, please refrain from reading. 
> 
> If it is not believable the way I wrote it, please comment. Feedback is welcome.

"Goodbye,my darling",Hannibal muttered into the ear of Will who was bedded  on fine white silken sheets and thick layers of the prettiest red petals of the most expensive, red Naomi roses scattered  underneath and beside him. A tear made its way down from Hannibal’s eyes but he allowed it to stain his cheek until one finger of Will wiped it away with a gentle movement. Hannibal  bowed down and planted a kiss on his lover‘s rosy lips, nuzzling his nose against his. With closed eyes he took in the wonderful, distinctive scent of his husband who continued to caress Hannibal’s cheeks with his hands until the wetness of the tear was gone. But he understood the sadness and the grief. Today was the day Will had given him the ultimate gift - to let Hannibal kill and consume him.

The decision had not been easy to make. Hannibal noticed the first changes of his husband’s demeanour in the last four months. Will started to forget the simplest things in their daily life. One morning, when he opened the fridge, he discovered that the car keys Will had been searching for in the evening were lying in the fridge. Yet Hannibal said nothing, hoping it was not the disease he himself was afraid of and merely took it for simple absent-mindedness, even though he noticed a faint trace of sour and stale aroma mingled with the usual fragrance of his beloved.

Another day, Will did not remember he had adopted two dogs a while ago and welcomed them in as new strays. He asked Hannibal if they could keep them and with a forced, happy smile he agreed, not having the heart to tell him they were already his. It was then he had to avow that Will suffered from the worst from of dementia but wondered when he should talk about it. 

The situation that left the most painful sting in his heart was when Will could not recall, even for a simple moment, when and how they got married. Hannibal surprised him on their wedding anniversary with two plane tickets for a trip to Florence and Will gave nothing away that they had ever been there as his eyes glowed in excitement and he said to Hannibal he could not remember having visited Florence even once.

When he was confronted with the  diagnosis of the cruel illness of mind after these incidents, Will  knew there was no other choice before it was too late and he was unable to make any decisions anymore. He did not want Hannibal to watch how every bit of his personality would gradually slip  away from him by the hands of time. The slow decay would be too devastating. All the memories of their blossomed, passionate and deep love, their carnal lust and the conjoint kills they committed  would have been lost. Will knew as well he would have become a stranger and a burden for Hannibal who would have to nurse him until the very end when the last stage set in. Too great a burden to bear.

This was not the way he wanted his husband to remember him. He did not want to be seen as someone who had completely forgotten the most precious person in his life and who was  only the shadow of his former self and merely physically alive. He did not want to become someone who was helpless, dependent, needy or confused. Incapable of uttering complete sentences anymore or getting dressed on his own. Spitting out the food he was fed because he would be angry for no reason.

With all his heart he hated being weak and being unable to do anything against the inevitable change of his brain.He would want to remember him the way he was after the fall off the cliff. Will yearned to be a part of Hannibal forever.

One evening when they were cuddled up on the couch in the living room, seeking  solace and forgiveness, they finally had this important conversation after the disastrous confrontation on their wedding anniversary which had caused Will to be angry at Hannibal for concealing it. It was in the precise moment, when Hannibal told Will he would always be there and care for him, no matter how difficult it would get  that he stated his wish to die and his body to consumed.

Hannibal ,though reluctant and surprised at first by his suggestion, understood him and consented as he would never do anything against his husband’s desire again. Even though the psychiatrist inside of him should have talked him out of this. Conflicted as he was, he didn’t. In the back of his mind, he never stopped craving for complete consummation of his beloved in secret although he never wanted to admit it to Will.

Now they were here and Hannibal still hated the illness, hated himself that he couldn’t do anything against it. 

“Goodbye, sweetheart”, Will finally breathed back with a warm yet sad smile on his face, watching how Hannibal  pulled back the sleeve of his shirt  and the jacket, exposing the bow of his arm.

His head rested on a red velvet pillow with his embroidered name in golden letters. He wore a perfectly tailored dark navy blue jacket, a white shirt with his initials in gold stitched on it and slacks matching the colour of his jacket. His coffee brown hair was groomed and the beard shaved. A cloud of his cheap aftershave and the scent of his dogs surrounded him. Even in death Will was supposed to look beautiful but wear his own distinguishing scent Hannibal identified Will with when he visited him in prison. Whenever Hannibal chose to return to his mind palace, he would like to think of how stubbornly he wore his atrocious aftershave with the ship on the bottle even after the fall.

Hannibal revelled in the touch of Will’s hands on his face before he turned his upper body  reluctantly away, and fetched the syringe and a small glass bottle filled with pentobarbital from his medical bag from the floor beneath his chair He opened the lid and filled the syringe with the substance that would put Will in a slumber he would never awaken  from again. His  hands that have always been smooth and controlled, were shaking.

Will grabbed Hannibal’s hand, steadying it and straightened his upper body a little bit until he sat upright in his deathbed and stared him right in his dark brown eyes, filled with silent tears. “It’s okay”, Will whispered in a warm, soft voice, trying to give his husband the courage he needed although he was emotional himself and then squeezed  his thigh firmly. Hannibal swallowed harshly and put the syringe aside to hold Will’s hand again as long as he was warm and alive. “It was my decision”. Will said in a quivering voice. “Keep me in your memory, Hannibal. Make the best dish out of my meat”, Will added with a  faint smile on his lips. “Don’t disappoint me.”

Hannibal could not hold the new wave of tear drops back which were gathering again in his eyelashes  and sought comfort by kissing Will another time. A long and chaste kiss. Their tongues intertwined for some minutes for the last time in their lives. They kissed as if they were standing right in the chapel in Italy before the priest again. At least that is how Hannibal remembered. Time stood still once again.Hannibal took in the sweet flavour of the glossy lips of Will he would so dearly miss when he was gone. Next to the strong scent of musk and sweat after they made love or the smell of motor oil when he had returned from working on his boat motors.

“You will be the best meal I will ever have the pleasure to enjoy. You will be cooked to perfection. Every bite will honour your memory, ” Hannibal said, his voice trembling,too, while he leaned his forehead against his, feeling Wil’s breath on his face, steady and calm.

“Good”, Will whispered back with an attempted crooked smile on his lips. A short break before he added in a hushed voice, seeing the grief on Hannibal’s face: “Don’t look back or waste your life. You should live and thrive. Think of me when you kill and eat the rude", Hannibal looked away. Will must have guessed that he wanted to join him afterwards as the thought of a life without him seemed so dull and pointless. "Please, Hannibal.” Will pleaded, his eyes flickering over his face. “You must do this for me.Celebrate life like you always did. Visit all the places and the countries I can’t go to with you anymore.Especially Florence. I would have loved to see Italy.”

The last words were uttered with sheer pain in Will’s trembling voice as the feeling of regret seized him. His husband sighed deeply. Will had forgotten that they just travelled to Italy a few weeks ago. Hannibal who did not want to see him crying before his death, pulled him into a tight embrace and together they wept as the emotions overwhelmed them.

For some minutes Hannibal held him tightly in his embrace, swaying him back and forth like a newborn in the arms of his father, saying “Shh”, when Will’s  whimpers grew louder. He sang a Lithuanian lullaby he had sung to Mischa to calm him. ”Think about the happiest moment, Will.” Hannibal murmured.He held him to his chest until his crying stopped and Will gathered his composure again, smiling to himself as he thought of all the moments he could still see in his fractured mind palace where the first memories had already been stolen  by the  malicious darkness, creating black holes in the vast rooms, like shards of glass falling out of the mirror cracks.

Yet there were still some left that were untouched. Hannibal proposing to him on top of  the illuminated Eiffel Tower in Paris at night with the lights of the city of love sparkling underneath their feet. Him lying with Hannibal naked on the white, pristine beach of Nassau in the Bahamas, making sweet love while the ocean foam bathed their legs and the blood-red sun was about to set. Of course there were also bad ones. He remembered vaguely when they left each other for days, after Hannibal manipulated him into a kill in their first months. He had jumped at his throat and pushed him to the ground when the savage impulses from his wrath could not be held back. Some blood had been spilled and he had nearly killed Hannibal in the process but that was their nature of their relationship which had transformed into a more peaceful one soon after. He smiled. The conflicts did not matter anymore. Most important was that every single moment had been spent at his soulmate’s side in the end after overcoming their battles in all these years and so it was just fine.

“It is time, Hannibal”, Will finally said, and pushed him away although he did not wanted to but it needed to happen before it got  too hard for both of them. “Don’t wait until the meat spoils ”, Will said with a wry smile  and offered him his arm. “I love you, sweetheart. I will be forever in you.” 

Hannibal nodded, chuckled at his remark, then took the stretched out  arm of Will and carefully injected the drug into the vein. He focussed his eyes only at the needle to make sure his hand was as steady as possible. Looking into the depths of Will’s eyes would only make this a lot harder than it already was.

“I love you,too, mylimasis”, Hannibal whispered, shifting his gaze back to  Will. He pulled the syringe out of his vein and put it aside and caressed ever inch of Will‘s  face with his hands that started shaking again. Hannibal watched  with a sorrowful face how the effect of the drug set in and Will’s consciousness  started to slide away from him. His eyelids fluttered. “Now go to sleep”, he whispered in a suave voice. He pulled down the sleeves of Will’s shirt and jacket and made sure everything looked neat in the moment Will was about to die.

Hannibal petted his hair and stayed close to his face, witnessing how the breath of Will finally slowed down. With his last breath and strength that was left in his body, his eyes half-shut, Will exhaled the words: “It was beautiful”, before breathing arrest set in and his heart stopped beating forever. The light in his  piercing blue eyes which were locked in Hannibal’s until the last moment of his decease, extinguished and the love of his life had passed away. His head made a last tilt to the left.

He felt his pulse with his slender fingers  and there was none. Hannibal closed his eyes, his face mirroring his sorrow and started to sob silently over the corpse of his husband who had fallen asleep and would never wake again. He put his head on his chest and rested there for a while, until the warmth had gone from his body. Rigor mortis settled in his jaw, his eyelids, his limbs ,signalling the end of a life and the coming  decomposition of the human body. Hannibal closed Will’s eyes shut.

When evening set in, Hannibal planted a last soft kiss on his forehead. He got up from the chair and carried Will’s body to the chamber he had prepared for this occasion and with the most careful hands he began his work to honour his beloved’s body and removed his tongue, heart, lungs, kidneys, stomach, pancreas thymus and liver with surgical precision. The brain was left untouched.Hannibal did not want to ruin the appearance of his beloved completely and secondly he did fear to catch the disease even though it was an irrational thought. The physical shell of his beloved was to be cremated according to his will.

At the dinner table he made his beloved a part of himself forever and savoured the soft and tender taste of the marvellous dish he had created for this occasion with every bite. His heart, braised in the finest red wine and served with a rich, flavourful sauce on glaced vegetables. The rest of his organs  would only be eaten on either their wedding anniversary or his day of death. His meat was too precious to be wasted.

Hannibal felt his presence still linger in the room during dinner and he wore a reverend expression on his face  while he was eating. The unusual silence in the house except for the occasional barks of the dogs was hurting him as much as the sight of the beautiful ghost of Will whom he imagined sitting on the other side of the table. His dead husband gave him an amused yet warm smile, watching him feast on his own flesh in curiosity and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs.

”Was my meat to your liking, darling?” Will asked in a soft voice when Hannibal was about to put the last bit of the braised muscle flesh in his mouth, savouring it, chewing it slowly. 

“It is. Far beyond my expectations.Your flesh is of the sweetest and most tender flavour I have ever tasted in my life. There is no comparison worth enough to describe it ”, Hannibal answered, reciprocating his fond look. 

"Glad to hear that”, Will laughed at that, got up from the chair and planted a kiss on his temple. "I’ll be with you wherever you go”, he whispered and wrapped his arms around his shoulders.  “Our cells are conjoint now. My heart beats in yours.” A sad smile appeared on Hannibal’s face at this remark and he imagined taking Will’s hands into his, squeezing them firmly. 

A few days later Hannibal took the golden urn with the ashes of Will  out to the Atlantic. He sailed on Will’s white sailboat until he reached the ocean of Chesapeake Bay and carefully littered the ashes into the ocean where they once had been cast out of the waves and started a new life.

Will stood beside him at the guardrail and watched how the burned remains of his body got lost in in the depths of the ocean before his ghost faded away with a muttered “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Even twenty years later, when the time had come for him to return to his second half waiting on the other side, he was still wearing his wedding ring with Will’s name on it  though he had spent his last years with Clarice. She had accepted it, knowing how deep  and unique their bond had been. Hannibal laid himself down to sleep on his bed in his apartment in Buenos Aires while she sat by his side until the very end. He embraced death with a smile on his face, muttering “Will” when he saw his husband standing in front of him. Will gave him a fond, open smile. He wore the same suit he had died in. This time, though, he was surrounded by a warm, golden light that flooded out from the mysterious gate that opened up behind him. The world that was made for both of them. Will came closer, reached  out for his hand, saying “Welcome home, darling. I’m so proud of you. Come with me now.”Hannibal smiled back, took his hand and together they walked into the light.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For those who could get themselves to read the story:
> 
> Thank you ❤️ *hug*


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